


sweet and honest mistakes

by perfectpro



Series: you were not the dreamer (you were just the dream) [1]
Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: 2016-2017 NHL Season, Domestic, Established Relationship, F/M, Kid Fic, M/M, Multi, Polyamory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-03
Updated: 2017-08-03
Packaged: 2018-12-10 18:58:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11697861
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/perfectpro/pseuds/perfectpro
Summary: “I just want to play hockey, Sid,” Flower says. “You should know how that feels better than anyone.”Sid does probably knows how it feels better than anyone. He pushed every other dream aside because that one had grown so much, ballooned into something that took up every aspect of his life until there wasn’t room until anything left.Sid still wants to play hockey, of course. He wants other things, too, though.The decision has already been made. Flower doesn’t need Sid to make him feel worse about it. “I do,” he whispers, hoping that it comes across as the benediction it is.





	sweet and honest mistakes

**Author's Note:**

> I told myself for literally ten years that I'd never write RPF and then wrote this in three days. Cheers, I guess.
> 
> Title inspired by John Mayer's "You're Gonna Live Forever In Me"
> 
>  
> 
> _Life is full of sweet mistakes, and love's an honest one to make_  
> 
> 
>   
>  If you want to get super emotional about MAF leaving for the Golden Knights, read on at your own risk. 

_November 2016_

  


The trouble is that they’ve never had problems. Not even that they’ve never had a problem like this, or that they know how to fight with each other. It’s just that the biggest problem that Sid can remember in their relationship is when he stopped the girls from calling him Dad and Flower stepped in to snap at him.

The only kinds of fights they’ve had before are the ones where Sid tries to isolate himself, tries to take up a smaller part of their relationship than he should. He put off moving in, he put off even getting involved in the first place, and it’s always been Flower and Vero pulling his head out of his ass and announcing that they still want him and he isn’t allowed to leave unless he really wants to.

Sid will never want to.

The closest they’ve ever gotten to now is after being knocked out of a playoff series, when Vero shuts them off in the bedroom and goes to take care of the girls while Sid and Flower take care of each other for the night.

“He isn’t… It’s never been like this,” Sid says, working his thumbnail under the label of his beer as Geno sits across from him with a thoughtful expression. “I don’t know what to do, because I can’t tell him it’s going to be okay. The tandem thing is hurting him, and I’m not dealing with it very well either.”

Everyone knows that it’s not going well, neither of them has that good of a poker face when the cameras are out of the room. The season is… The team is fine, Sid thinks, but he doesn’t know if they’ll be able to keep it up with this kind of threat hanging over their heads.

If it was literally been any other year, they wouldn’t be having this problem.

“It’s hard thing, you captain, so you want what’s best for team. Want what’s best for Flower, too, though,” Geno surmises.

“What’s best for Flower is what’s best for the team,” Sid retorts, but even as he says it knows that he’s only saying what he wants to believe is true. Whether it is or not is a different matter entirely. He sighs, hanging his head a little as he peels a strip of the label off.

Reaching over, Geno puts his hand on Sid’s head and then asks, “Have you tried talking to him?”

Sid sighs. “He doesn’t want to talk about it. The only times I’ve tried, he basically threw the girls at me as a distraction.” He’ll have to bring it up again, he knows, but the longer they wait the worse it will get. The summer was bad enough already, Marc-Andre going tight-lipped whenever anyone made mention of it. Even having the Cup didn’t make it easier, because that was the whole reason they were in this mess anyway.

With a sigh of his own, Geno removes his hand and sets his glass on the bar, tugging the bottle away from Sid’s hands to set it down as well. “Go home, kiss your girls goodnight, curl up with Flower and Vero,” he advises, and it sounds so good that Sidney can’t help but agree.

“Say hi to Anna and Nikita for me,” he requests, watching Geno’s growing smile as he thinks about his own family.

When Sid does get home, Vero is in the kitchen holding the phone to her ear, Estelle sitting in front of her on the counter. Estelle reaches for Sid as soon as she sees him, and he lifts her up before leaning over in an attempt to kiss Vero’s cheek, only to be waved off.

Vero wrinkles her nose, pointing to a fresh stain on her shirt that makes Sid hold Estelle out a little further from him as he checks her over as well. Balancing her on his hip, he presses a hand to her forehead and winces when he feels how warm she is.

“I already cleaned her up, and the sheets should be changed by now,” Vero tells him, covering the mouthpiece of the phone. She runs her fingers through Estelle’s hair, and the little girl curls further into Sid, revealing just how tired she is.

“Come on, then,” Sid says to Estelle, repositioning her in his arms before starting up the stairs.

Flower is in Estelle’s room, tucking blankets under the mattress. He looks up with a tired smile as Sid carries Estelle in, now almost asleep even after such a short time. “It’s probably a stomach bug, but Vero’s on the phone with the doctor,” he explains, grabbing a freshly laundered pillowcase and shaking it out into its proper position.

Estelle whines a little when they put her in bed, and Sid’s heart just about breaks when she reaches for him and sniffles. “Do you want me to stay?” he asks, sitting on the edge of her bed and pointing to the chair in the corner that they read her bedtime stories in. She nods, and it’s a little pathetic how easily the girls can get him to do whatever they want, but Sid is a sucker for their big eyes, especially now that he knows she’s sick.

Snickering a little, Flower kisses Estelle’s forehead and then aims for Sid’s as well, but Sid lifts his chin at the last moment to catch Flower’s lips on his own. “I’ll be back soon,” he says, working on untangling himself from Estelle’s hold. It’s clear by the disbelieving expression that Flower gives him that he doesn’t trust the statement, but Sid is just planning on sitting in the chair until Estelle is too asleep to notice him sneaking out.

As it turns out, Vero comes in to wake him up, perched on the arm of the chair and nudging his shoulder until he starts. “Come on, we’re going to bed now,” she tells him, taking him by the hand and leading him out of the room.

It isn’t until they’re all in bed, Sidney sandwiched between Flower and Vero that he remembers they need to talk. But the furrow between Flower’s eyebrows is just from worry about Estelle and maybe some annoyance of having to do laundry and clean so late at night, not a sign of anything bigger, and Sidney is still feeling soft inside from the memory of Estelle reaching for him and asking him to stay.

They’ll have to talk, but it’s late and there’s no sense in getting upset right before they go to bed. Sidney throws an arm around Vero’s waist as she curls into him and allows Flower to wedge a thigh between his, and it feels like he drifts off to sleep easier than he has in a month.

 

_December 2016_

  


It’s Vero who lays the cards on the table, who schedules a babysitter and informs them of where they’re having dinner and stares them down like they’re going to tell her no. “We’ve always agreed on open and honest communication, but we haven’t do anything about this,” she says, and Sidney feels guilt rush through him when he realizes how shaky her voice is.

He’s known this was something they’d have to deal with, and he should have brought it up at the start of the season. Hell, during the offseason, when they would have had months longer to talk together and make a better decision.

Sidney doesn’t know what a better decision would be, doesn’t even know what decision they’ll go with, but every option seems bad and makes his stomach sink. Getting ready for dinner that night, he thinks through what limited choices they have left at this point. Some of them aren’t even up to them, because the trade deadline isn’t for two more months and the thought of having to worry about it makes him feel nauseated.

They’ve been to the restaurant that Vero’s picked out, albeit not since the remodel. The waiter leads them to a private room after glancing between Sidney and Marc-Andre in what was probably supposed to be a subtle manner, passing them menus and taking their drink orders before leaving them alone at last.

With a sigh, Vero sets her hands on the table and steadies them each with a look. Finally, to Marc-Andre, she says, “You have to tell him.”

Sid jumps to worst conclusion immediately. “Oh my God,” he breathes, looking between them. He wants to reach for his phone, see whether the news has already broken, but he can’t make himself look away from Flower. “I’ll call Jim, I’ll call Mario,” he starts, because they can’t do this, oh God.

“I haven’t been traded,” Flower tells him quickly, reaching over and taking Sidney’s hand in his own. He pauses, though, and Sidney is about to ask what Vero was talking about though, when he says, “I’ve been involved in some conversations with Vegas. They’re interested,” he says gently.

Of course they’re interested. Every team with a bit of cap space is interested, because it’s not like Pittsburgh’s goaltending situation has exactly gone unnoticed. Sidney feels his mouth go dry, reaches for the glass of water already set in front of him, and takes a drink just to have something to do with his hands. “What kinds of conversations?” he finally asks, though of course he can’t pretend that he doesn’t know.

Flower smiles sadly, because he knows just as well as Sid does. “The expansion draft is coming up, Sid. I’m trying to consider my options.”

It’s on the tip of Sidney’s tongue to say that there aren’t any options to consider, but he manages to hold himself back. “You haven’t made a decision, though?” he checks.

“Of course he hasn’t, Sidney,” Vero says almost reflexively, and Sid turns towards her as she stares at him in almost disbelief. He feels himself go hot with shame at the thought that, even for a moment, he believed Flower would make this kind of decision without talking to about it first.

He’s about to apologize, but their waiter comes in and starts setting drinks down on the table. When he goes to take their orders, Sid realizes he hasn’t even looked at the menu, but he doesn’t want another interruption, scanning through it quickly and throwing out the first option that looks like it might fit the meal plan.

The waiter leaves quickly, and it’s only when Vero reaches over to take Sid’s other hand that he realizes the implications of her being the one to bring it up. “You knew, then?” he asks finally, unable to keep some of the bitterness out of his voice.

“I was scared to talk to you about it,” Flower says quickly. “You… You’re so much a part of the team that I didn’t want to tell you I was thinking about leaving.”

It’s already obvious by the way that this conversation is going, but Sid has to make himself ask anyway. “You’re thinking about leaving?” It’s always been possible, they’ve known that, but hearing it finally spoken aloud makes it feel unavoidable, inescapable. “You have a no-trade clause; you wouldn’t have to leave.”

With a sad smile, Flower strokes his thumb across Sid’s knuckles in manner that’s supposed to be comforting but just makes Sid think about how short of a period of time they’ve had this, how everything after this conversation will feel timed, how Sid thought there was going to be so much more. He was stupid, and he thought there was no way it could end.

“I’d waive it. It’s early, still, but I have to think about it. It’s… Something has to change, Sid. We won’t be able to keep this up for longer than a season, you know that.”

He does know it. He’s seen how run-down Flower has been, has watched the games take their toll. “Something has to change,” Sid echoes at last, because Flower said it as though it was a known fact, and maybe it is. Maybe Sid’s just been avoiding that for the same reasons he’s been avoiding talking about it.

Vero squeezes his hand, and he looks up to find her staring at him with glassy eyes. “It’s going to be okay,” she tells him with the kind of smile that says she doesn’t really believe that even as she says it.

That’s the thing, though. It’s not going to be okay. Sid’s spent so much of his life too focused on hockey to think about having a family, and now that he has one it might be hockey that breaks it apart. “Why would you waive it?” he forces himself to ask.

Everything gets quiet for a moment, and then Marc-Andre coughs. “I don’t know if I will. There are still a few months left before I have to decide. Let’s just have a nice meal, alright?” he tries, but the smile that he musters to go with the words is weak at best and mostly watery.

Despite the fact that they’re in the middle of the season and he hasn’t eaten anything yet, Sid isn’t hungry anymore.

 

When they get home, spending the rest of the dinner in a silted kind of silence even as they tried to talk a little about the food and other things, Sidney heads up the stairs immediately after shedding his coat while Vero and Flower discharge the babysitter.

They’re home early, because Estelle has been bathed and is in her pajamas but isn’t in bed yet. Sid can’t help but scoop her into his arms when he sees her, and she giggles, getting a mouthful of foaming toothpaste all over his shirt. “What did you do while we were gone?” he asks, reaching for a nearby washcloth and wiping himself off.

It’s still going to have to go into the washer almost immediately, but it can wait for a few minutes as Estelle recounts the rapturous hours that she got Carly to play ponies with her and how she was the veterinarian for the injured horses. When Sid plays with her, he never gets to be the veterinarian, but Carly is a fairly new babysitter so it could be she’s still on her best behavior with a new playmate.

“We ate mac and cheese, and Carly said I had to eat my broccoli before I had more, but I got more milk with it, too,” Estelle tells him, moving to wind her arms around as his neck as he grabs the toothbrush just in time before it can create a second problem area.

“More milk, huh? So was the broccoli worth it?” he asks, walking with her to the other side of the Jack and Jill bathroom, cracking the door slightly to make out Scarlett’s sleeping form by the light of the nightlight that’s plugged in near her.

Estelle talks more about Carly and the games they played until Sid nudges her toothbrush back into her hand and sets her back onto her stool so that she can see in the mirror. They’ll have to tire her out a little more now that she knows they’re all home, but he can tell that she’s already had a busy day and will drop off to sleep fairly easily after a bit.

He loves coming home to the girls, even when they’re a handful. Vero says he’d love it a little less if they were home more often, and Sid doesn’t often wish that he had a normal nine-to-five kind of job, but whenever they leave for roadies he can’t help thinking about it.

The conversation from dinner still doesn’t feel real, even though Flower was right. Something will change, because it has to. The way that the team is working right now, the added pressure on Flower and Muzz, the expansion draft looming over all of them. Sid doesn’t know if they’d be able to make it work during any season, but especially not this one.

As Estelle spits in the sink, Sid pulls her hair back so that it doesn’t get toothpaste in it, and he smooths his hand over her head almost thoughtlessly, a motion that’s become practiced over the years. She beams at him, and that’s when it really hits him.

He wouldn’t just be losing Flower and Vero, though of course the thought of that hurts in places that Sid didn’t realize could hurt. He’d be losing the girls, too, and that feels like a knife in the heart, makes him unsteady on his feet. He’d lose everything, his entire life, almost. Nothing would be untouched.

“Daddy?” Estelle asks, tugging on his sleeve.

Sid crouches down next to her, forcing himself to give her a reassuring smile. “What is it?”

She reaches up and puts her little hands on his face, moving from under his eyes to across his cheeks and then down to his chin. Her eyes are wide and curious, so large and brown that it’s no wonder that all she has to do is look at him to get him to do what she wants. “Daddy, why are you crying?”

 

_February 2017_

  


The team tries to stay away from it, even as the trade deadline creeps closer. No one even tries to bring it up, and Sid feels like he’s spending his time with his muscles tensed, like he’s waiting to be punched. They’re walking on a tightrope, and Flower is still taking calls with Vegas like it’s a viable option, like some place across the country is where he needs to be.

Flower tells him on a road trip, after they’ve come back from a win. They’re curled up in bed together, and they both smell like booze from the club they were in and smoke from the couple who was standing next to them while they waited for a cab to get back to the hotel.

Sid feels light, but that’s not the right word for it. Compared to last season around this time, when there weren’t deadlines hanging over them, when their future was wide open and Sid couldn’t see an end, this isn’t light. But for now, after a win, after talking with Vero and saying goodnight to the girls, after spending some time in the company of teammates who are as relaxed as they ever get… It doesn’t feel too bad.

“I want to talk to you about something,” Flower starts, and Sid tenses up automatically, because they can only avoid it for so long. “I have a meeting when we’re back, with management. We’re going to talk about the trade deadline.”

He says it so matter-of-fact, so emotionlessly. Sid knows that this meeting has been planned for at least a week, probably longer. He wants to roll over into the blankets and pull them over his head, bury his head in the sand and pretend that they can keep things together indefinitely. Forcing himself to roll to face Marc-Andre, he nods. “What are you going to do?” he finally asks, because that’s the big question, the one that no one has the answer to but Flower.

After their conversation the other month, they hadn’t had another one. They’d kept putting it off, because they were doing road trips or had made plans or whatever excuse they could come up with to prolong the pain. Sid wonders whether it would have been better if they’d just gotten it done with that night, but he can’t bring himself to regret having gotten more time together.

Flower runs his hand through his hair, letting it stick up and not bothering to push it back into place. “I haven’t made a decision, yet. I want to talk with you and Vero about it,” he answers, but he doesn’t meet Sidney’s eyes when he says it.

“You know what you want to do, though,” Sidney guesses carefully. He has his own suspicions, suspicions that sit heavy in his stomach and keep him awake at night, but he wonders if they’re right. He knows what he wants, and he knows he’s selfish for wanting it but he can’t stop himself.

Nodding, Flower moves to plug his phone in to charge for the night. He says it when he’s turned away, like if he doesn’t have to watch Sid’s face change when he says it then it’ll be easier. “I want to waive for Vegas.”

A few more months together, but at the cost of years spent apart. Sid doesn’t know off the top of his head how long a flight to Vegas takes, but it’s got to be longer than to somewhere in the Eastern Conference, Florida excluded. Sid wonders how much he’ll miss, how much will be captured on photos and videos versus how much he’ll hear of after the fact. The girls are already growing up so fast, and every time that they get off the plane from a roadie he feels like he’s already missed so many things.

Two games a year, both bye weeks, and the offseason. Realistically, just the Penguin’s bye week, because they won’t pull the girls out of school for a week in the middle of the schoolyear.

And that’s all assuming that Flower and Vero want to try a long distance relationship.

“Oh,” he says at last. He doesn’t what else to say, what else there is to say. Vegas is an expansion team, it’ll be years before they make it to the playoffs, longer before they’re a contender.

“Can you say something else?” Flower asks after a moment, twisting back into bed and finally meeting Sid’s eyes.

Sid doesn’t really know what there is to say besides the obvious.

He wants to say that it’s a shitty team, that if he doesn’t want another Cup for the rest of his career it’s a great choice. He wants to ask what’s wrong with staying the East. He wants to curl up and ask him to just stay, please, God, just stay.

Pulling the blankets over them, Sid resists the urge to roll over and close his eyes. He’s the captain, he’s supposed to want what’s best for the team; he’s supposed to be able to see the sense in this kind of decision. He can see it, is the thing, and it makes his stomach turn.

“Can we just… Can we not, right now? We can talk with Vero when we get back,” Sid says. This decision affects all of them, and Sid doesn’t want to do anything without her.

Flower sighs, leaning forward to kiss Sid briefly before climbing out of bed and making his way to the bathroom. “I’m sorry, Sid,” he finally says, as though that might be offering enough.

 

They talk with Vero the night they get back, after they’ve come in late enough to wake Scarlett and Estelle and have to put them back to bed. They sit around the kitchen table and talk. Or, Flower and Vero talk, and Sid just listens, for the most part, staring down at the grain of the wood and wondering whether they’ll take the table with them when they leave.

It’s a when, not an if. They can’t pretend otherwise any longer, so now the only question is what team that Flower will go to next, the question of what city that Sid will despise because they’ve taken his family away. The question of what airport that he’ll have to go through when he goes to visit.

Vegas is the winner. “A fresh start,” Vero says, and she’s probably trying to convince herself of it so Sid doesn’t bother to correct her. In a way, he wonders why they even bothered to include him in this discussion.

They talked about a wedding once, where Sidney would marry both of them. This was a year before, before Flower was concussed coming into the playoffs, before Muzz proved himself and created the need for a decision to be made. Once that happened, they stopped talking about marriage, and Sidney’s parents stopped jokingly asking when Flower and Vero were going to make an honest man out of him.

They talked about marriage, and they talked about more kids eventually. Because Flower and Vero knew how much he loved kids, wondered if he would have preferred some that were actually his.

It was baffling at the time, and still is, to think that he could ever want different children when Scarlett and Estelle are already so perfect.

Vegas, Sidney thinks, the word throwing him off balance.

That night when they go to bed, Sidney kisses them both with an edge of desperation and they let him. If he can only have this for a little while longer, he’s going to take advantage of the time they have left. “Please, please,” he gasps, not even knowing what he’s pleading for, only that this isn’t what he needs.

 

Flower goes to the meeting, and he waives he no trade clause for Vegas, and Sid waits outside the room for the countdown to begin. T-minus three months until life as he knows it comes to an end.

“I just want to play hockey, Sid,” Flower says as they walk to the car. “You should know how that feels better than anyone.”

Sid does probably knows how it feels better than anyone. For so long, he just wanted to play hockey, he only wanted to play hockey. He pushed every other dream aside because that one had grown so much, ballooned into something that took up every aspect of his life until there wasn’t room until anything left.

Sid still wants to play hockey, of course. He wants other things, too, though. He wants to grill steaks on the patio as Estelle runs around in the backyard playing with Vero while Scarlett walks over by the garden with Flower. He wants to color with Estelle and do finger paints, and he wants to put the drawings that she does of their family on the fridge. He wants to tuck the girls in at night and read them stories and watch them grow and learn.

It’s easy, though, for him to think of those things. He gets to have them while he’s playing some of the best games of his career, both dreams realized at the same time.

The decision has already been made. Flower doesn’t need Sid to make him feel worse about it, so Sid just takes his hand on the way and squeezes it. “I do,” he whispers, hoping that it comes across as the benediction it is.

 

_March 2017_

  


The trade deadline passes, and Flower stays, which Sid knew he would. It’s not surprising, but some of the team didn’t know before and now it’s quiet in the locker rooms sometimes like there’s been a death.

Tanger is the only one who isn’t afraid to talk about it, and he picks Sid up from practice one day at Vero’s apparent insistence. “I was going to call, but after Vero asked I figured this would be easier,” he says, waving it off as Sid apologizes for not being in better contact.

Sid knows at this point that the physical therapy is only helping so much, not to the point that it should be, and it worries him, it worries all of them. He’s been a bad captain, shirking his duties recently when the team needs him. Tanger glares at him until he stops apologizing, finally reaching over to smack him in the shoulder, hard.

“You’re not going to make me get better any faster by wasting your breath,” he announces, and that’s what finally gets Sid to shut up. “You’ve had other things to worry about, we know.”

Once they get back to Tanger’s place, Tanger scoops Alex up and places him quickly in Sidney’s arms, because it’s no secret that he’s most docile while holding children. And Sid accepts it, bouncing Alex as they go back through the house to find Catherine, who beams at Kris when she sees the three of them.

“Good, I hear you’ve been terrible company,” Catherine greets Sid, ruffling Alex’s hair and then turning to kiss Tanger on the cheek.

He has been terrible company, so he doesn’t try to refute it, just sits down where she tells him to and accepts the glass of water that she presses into his hand. “I don’t want to talk about it,” he warns her, watching as she rolls her eyes at him, bemused.

“What’s there to talk about?” Tanger asks, sinking onto the couch across from him and crossing his legs. “Why would you need to talk about anything? It’s not like anything big is happening, nothing you’d be struggling with,” he comments decisively, and Sid knows that he’s only doing this to provoke him into saying something but it’s still annoying to hear.

Catherine sits down next to Tanger and doesn’t sigh, but Sid’s known her long enough and sat through enough dinners to where he can tell that she’d like to. “Well, if you don’t want to talk about it with us, I don’t know who you’re going to talk about it with.”

Leaning down to allow Alex to grab at his hair better, Sid uses it as an excuse to avoid looking at Kris and Catherine all the while. Saying that he doesn’t need to talk about it would be a lie, so he just shrugs. “I talk about it with Vero and Marc-Andre,” he allows, even though that’s not much better than a lie.

When he does look up, Tanger is wearing the disappointed face that he only reserves for Sid. Other guys on the team get the rage that he usually displays his displeasure in, but Sid’s always been more affected by disappointment, and Tanger was quick to pick up on it. “From what Vero said, you haven’t been talking. You don’t even talk when they ask you to, you just sit there and listen.”

Sid shrugs again, because that’s fair enough. He doesn’t know what they want him to say, though, when they ask him about what kind of house or neighborhood they should buy in. They’re talking about it like it’s a done deal already, and it pretty much is but he thought he could avoid listening to them plan their life without him until after the playoffs.

Alex stands up and reaches for Sid’s hair again, and he obliges by looking down once more. “I don’t really have much to say about it.”

The set up reminds Sid of before he got together with Flower and Vero, when he’d come over to Kris and Catherine’s for dinner and sit across from them and let them talk to him about friends, singles or couples, that they thought he’d be interested in. “You shouldn’t be lonely,” Kris said once as they drank beer on the patio.

They used to give him crazy options, some of them Sid doesn’t even think were real people, just a jumble of attributes they’d thrown together in an attempt to figure out what he was looking for. They talked about teachers and doctors and lawyers and tight rope walkers, tattoo artists and chefs and bartenders. Sid had always waved them off and disregarded them, because he’d known who he was interested in and they were already so wrapped up in each other that it didn’t really matter.

Flower and Vero are still preoccupied with each other, even now that he’s with them. It’s just something that comes from the fact that they were together so long before him, and the first thing about them that he loved was how much they loved each other.

“That’s bullshit,” Catherine announces, looking distinctly annoyed. “Of course you have things to say, you’re just not comfortable saying them. Well, we’re not Marc-Andre or Vero, so say them in front of us.”

Tanger stares him while Sid thinks, briefly, about telling them. Then, Tanger says, “You know it’s alright to be sad.”

That seems to be the straw that broke the camel’s back, because it’s all that Sid can do not to spill everything at once. “That’s just it, though,” he exclaims, sitting up and pulling Alex’s hands from his hair, “I’m not just sad. I’m angry, because I should have been able to stop this. I should have talked to Mario or something, and pleaded with them. I should have begged Flower not to waive for Vegas, but he wants to go, so it’s not fair to him. So I’m angry, and I’m sad, because they keep planning for their life without me and it’s like they’re expecting me to just be okay with it.”

This burst of energy makes Alex uncomfortable enough to where he gets off of Sid’s lap, climbing down the couch and heading over into Catherine’s arms as she reaches down for him. Even as she does so, though, she glances at Tanger worriedly.

In the manner that only couples who have been together a while can have, it only takes them a look and a couple seconds before they’ve come to the same conclusion. Tanger seems to take the lead, leaning forward as he asks, “Their life without you?”

That’s what it’s going to be, and there’s no point in anyone pretending otherwise. Sid clenches his jaw as he thinks through it, forcing a few breaths. “It isn’t like we’ve talked about staying together since this has happened,” he tells them, and he wishes he didn’t have to do this, that it wasn’t happening at all.

Standing up, Tanger reaches for the keys that he’d set on the coffee table and says to Catherine, “Call Vero, tell her I’m bringing her boy home.”

On the way back, Sid doesn’t say anything, just sits quietly and thinks about how he shouldn’t have said anything. Tanger and Catherine are close friends, but that doesn’t mean he should have involved him in this way. He’s about to speak up when they turn down the driveway, thank Tanger for the ride and maybe throw in an apology when Tanger reaches over to press the lock button on the doors.

“You’re such an idiot, and you’re lucky we like you. Now go talk to them,” he snaps, looking into Sid’s face until he finds what he’s looking for and unlocks the doors.

When Sid gets in through the kitchen door, Vero hangs up the phone and shouts for Flower before running up to him. Sid catches her automatically, steadying himself before setting her back on the ground and noticing that she’s been crying.

“What’s wrong, what’s wrong?” he asks, brushing his fingers along her cheeks to wipe the tears, turning only when he hears a pounding coming from the hallway that’s revealed to be Marc-Andre as he wraps his arms around both of them. “Did something happen?”

Vero pounds weakly at his chest, not able to move her arm very far back from where she’s pinned to Sid’s chest by Marc-Andre’s arms. “You thought we were leaving you,” Flower says, leaning forward to rest his head against Sid’s. “I can’t believe you thought that we’d just leave.”

Everything that Sid has to say dries up in his mouth, but he can feeling the pricking start behind his eyes. “Tell me you mean it,” he requests, because he won’t be able to handle letting things continue if they’re only going to break up with him later.

“Of course we mean it,” Vero snaps at him, cupping her hands under his jaw. “How could you think we would do that to you?”

It still doesn’t make sense. “You’re leaving, though,” Sid says stupidly, because they are, there’s no way to avoid it. They’ll go live in one of the those Las Vegas homes he’s been seeing real estate printouts of on the kitchen counter for the past couple of weeks, the five bedroom ones that looks so ostentatious that Sid would be able to guess they were from Las Vegas before someone told him.

They’re going to move and the girls are going to settle in to one of those giant homes that looks like they’re more for display than for raising children, and maybe they’ll get used to the dessert. Estelle will remember Sid, of course, but Scarlett won’t, and Sid thinks that it would hurt less to get hit by a car than to know that.

“We’re leaving Pittsburgh,” Marc-Andre tells him, and he barely flinches at the words. “We’re not leaving you.”

Sid waits a moment for the cruelest practical joke in the world to come to an end, and when it doesn’t, he sinks into their embrace and finally lets himself cry.

 

_April 2017_

  


Flower wins their first playoff game. So many things are bad right now: Tanger’s recovering from surgery and out for the postseason, Muzz got injured during the warm up and is out for the next few weeks, their defensive line is a hodge-podge of guys who aren’t injured too badly and take up as little cap space as possible.

But Flower won their first playoff game, and maybe this is a kind of balm for the rest of the terrible things that are happening.

Vero grabs Marc-Andre and kisses him after the game, and Sid looks at the two people he loves most in the world and feels a part of himself break open. This is what Flower wants to do, and Sid can’t say that he doesn’t feel the same way, that he wouldn’t give everything to be out on the ice and to feel that rush.

For the first time, he thinks he understands why he has to do it.

 

Flower gets a helmet with the names of teammates he’s had over the years, and they power through the Blue Jackets in five games and Sid quietly swears to himself that if it’s Flower’s last season as a Penguin that they’re going all the way.

The other guys feel the same way, because any who’s been a Penguin knows that Flower deserves it, knows that there’s not a better guy in the league. And maybe Sid’s biased, because he loves Marc-Andre whether he’s on the ice or watching him pack a diaper bag before they leave for the day, but it’s hard not to be when the smile Flower gives after making an extravagant save is the same one that he gives after waking Sid up with a blowjob.

Hockey is a way of life, and Vero watches them come in from game after game (win after win), and she smiles fondly at them.

“I’m a morning person,” she tells them when they go to bed late at night, after relieving the babysitter and checking on the girls. “This is why I didn’t want to date a hockey player.”

“I’m a goalie, not a hockey player,” Marc-Andre always responds, kissing her hair and grinning overtop her head at Sid. “It’s that one you need to be mad at, not me.”

It’s their last set of playoffs together, Sid knows, and so much of what they’ve been doing over the last few months has been the last. It doesn’t sting anymore, but it’s settled into his bones like an ache that’s foretelling of the phantom pain he’ll have next year. He kisses them both, too tired for anything else before settling in to sleep.

 

May 2017

  


It’s a concussion because it’s always a concussion, and Sid hates the Washington Capitals almost more than the Flyers at this point. He wants to play, he needs to play, he needs to help his team.

“We lost one, okay,” Flower says when he sees Sid’s face, “but you should have seen the guys out there. They were playing like men possessed after you got off the ice. Geno’s goal was so good, I wish you could have seen it.”

Sid hadn’t been watching the game, but some of the trainers kept coming by the room to update him. “I heard,” he acknowledges, leaning forward and tucking his head under Marc-Andre’s chin and placing a hand on the back of his neck. “I fucking hate the Caps. I’m sorry we couldn’t get you a win.”

Using his fingers to comb through Sid’s hair in a gesture that’s almost automatic, Flower hums his agreement. “It’s a series, not just a game. Two more wins, okay?” he checks.

“Two wins,” Sid whispers, nodding. “I’m definitely out next game,” he says at last, even though the team’s been told already. “Game Five is the earliest I’d be back in the line-up, and that just depends on how the testing goes.” It feels worse now that he’s said it aloud. Fucking Washington.

They stand there a few minutes longer, until Flower pulls back and moves Sid’s hair out of his eyes. “Come on, let’s go home. Vero’s worried about you,” he says easily, and for a moment Sid thinks about how he’d feel if he had to watch March-Andre be escorted off the ice and couldn’t even see him until hours later.

Nodding and reaching into his pocket, Sid looks down at his cell phone to see the top few of a series of texts from Vero, and he winces apologetically. “You’re right. Let’s go home.”

 

“It’s my fault,” Sid hisses, trying to keep his voice down. “We’re the ones who were letting them get into our zone in the first place, and it’s not like we were making up the differential either. He shouldn’t have to be punished for something that wasn’t even his fault.” He holds his breath and then lets it out, a rush of air that helps, if only for a moment. He knows it’s useless to talk about, that they can’t change anything, but Vero just pulls him further into her and doesn’t say anything.

The house is dark, the girls having long since gone to bed, and Marc-Andre kissed them both briefly before ducking back soon after. Sid couldn’t sleep, though, and Vero found him an hour after he’d gotten out of bed and resigned himself to the couch for the night.

After a few minutes of silence, Sid is ready to maybe try going back to sleep again, but he stays when Vero says, “I wanted to talk with you about summer plans.”

“What about summer plans?” he asks finally, stomach churning. This summer will feel like one long goodbye, and he’s already planned to change some of his usual routines just to be with them for as long as possible.

She shrugs, moving to adjust the pillow behind her. “I was thinking that while you’re doing your hockey school, Marc-Andre and I would fly out to go look at houses in Vegas. If you want to come with us, we can plan for another time, but I thought that this might be easiest.”

It takes a few seconds for him to open his mouth, and then another pause before he asks, “Easiest for who?”

“You, I think. Us, too. We don’t want to do this, and it’s already going to be hard. And you’re going to do the school anyway, so it seemed like a good solution. This way, we’ll all have things to talk about.” She’s trying to make it seem normal, like they’re just vacationing away from each other for a few days, but Sid can hear the waver in her voice and moves his hand over to entwine with hers.

It’s true, he doesn’t think he could go and sit back as Flower and Vero look at places to create a life that he won’t be involved in. He’ll see it through FaceTime or Skype and the occasional visit, but it will really just be theirs. “That sounds good for you guys. Do you want me to take care of the girls while you’re in Vegas or are they coming with you?”

Even as he asks it, he knows it’s a dumb question, and Vero tries to soften the blow by lifting up their clasped hands and brushing a kiss along his knuckles. “You’ll be working all day at the camp, anyway, and they can pick out their rooms with us,” she tells him, and she’s right of course, but it doesn’t sit well with him.

There are so many things up in the air about next year, but some of them are already known, it’s only that Sid doesn’t want to acknowledge them.

“Can you promise me something?” he asks, squeezing her hand slightly and waiting for Vero to nod before continuing. “Can you call when you put them to bed? Or when the have a bad day or something like that. I know it’s going to be hell with the time difference and two different game schedules… But please, I still want to see them,” he asks, knowing that they won’t be able to keep it up all the time, but he can’t just let them go.

Estelle will be starting school soon, and Sid hates that he’s going to miss it, that he won’t be able to help braid her hair that day or take first day or school pictures.

“Of course you’ll still see them,” Vero answers instantly, sitting up and turning to almost glare at him. “We’re going to work things out once we have the schedules for next year. But there will be long road trips, and I’m not just going to stay in a city like that without a reason to. Of course we’re going to come back. Not all the time, I don’t want to be on a plane with a two year old that often, but did you think we’d just leave and send you a couple postcards? I thought we already talked about this,” she snaps, twisting into him and adjusting him around her like he’s a particularly stubborn pillow.

It takes a moment for Sid to process the onslaught of emotions he feels in that moment, but he lets Vero move him and then he tucks his chin onto her shoulder. “I knew that,” he says, reassuring her first and foremost, “but I thought I wouldn’t see the girls that often, just… Like you said, it’s tough to fly with them that often.” He breathes, though, and then hides a laugh into her skin.

She huffs, but he can tell that she’s not actually upset. “What was that for?”

For a moment, Sid thinks about saying that it doesn’t matter, but he thinks about it again and then still has to restrain himself from laughing too loudly at it. “I guess I can’t just move back into Mario’s guest house.”

 

_June 2017_

  


Sid’s been a shit captain this year.

The guys all try to disagree with him whenever he brings it up, especially Tanger, who hits him and then reminds everyone that he’s been dealing with his own shit. And Sid has, definitely, been dealing with his own shit, but so has everyone else.

He’s supposed to the captain of the team, not just a member, and it shouldn’t matter what he’s going through when he’s not on the ice. His guys come first, and they fucking did it. They may have come across the finish line bruised and bloodied (and when did Geno get hit in the face, anyway?), but they still won in the kind of game where Sid can practically hear his own blood pumping.

The Cup comes onto the ice, and Sid gets to lift it and take it for a lap for the third time in his life. Instinctively, he wants to pass it to Flower, who’s given his life to the Penguins and has sacrificed so much more than people would have asked for, has sacrificed it despite Sid literally begging him not to. But Hainsey has played all those years without even getting to a single playoff game, and he helped them win the Cup, so Sid passed it off to him and stands next to Flower as they watch him take a lap.

From Hainsey to Flower, and Sid’s chest was already tight but watching Flower pass the Cup off to Muzz, watching him hand over the torch in a way after teaching him over the past year. It hurts like hell, because Flower doesn’t deserve this. Flower deserves to be a lifelong Penguin, the way that Sid and Geno are, the way that Sid always thought he would be.

“Come here,” Flower says, skating back up and pulling Sid in for a hug as thgith as their gear will let them.

They won the Cup, but Flower wasn’t in goal and soon Flower will be in goal for another team. “We did it for you,” Sid tells him, because it’s so important that Flower knows that.

With a laugh, Flower glances around at the other guys on the team, the rookies who look like they’re waiting to wake up from a dream, the veterans who seem like they’ll never stop smiling. “They won for themselves,” he says, waving Sid off when he goes to correct the statement. “You won for me, though. Thank you.” He leans down and Sid tips his head up instinctively, their lips meeting in a kiss that feels almost private, because no one else is focused on them.

“I’m sorry I never got you that goal,” Sid finally tells him when they separate, surprised when Flower only laughs.

Shaking his head and pulling Sid close, Flower leans towards Sid’s ear to say, “That’s okay. Maybe I’ll score it on you, now.”

 

The original plan was that Vero would come with him to the NHL awards, and that way Sid wouldn’t have to worry about being the only one ready to cry when Marc-Andre’s name is announced. That was the plan, but then Estelle got sick, and then Scarlett got sick, and then Vero got sick and Sid basically declared the house quarantined.

Hags comes with him, because he says he has nothing better to do, but Sid eventually finds himself copied on an email that he guesses he wasn’t supposed to receive, because the subject heading is NHL AWARDS/SID NEEDS COMPANY. The rest of the recipients are Penguins, and they’re all arguing over who gets to go with him after the first email is Flower announcing the Vero won’t be able to attend.

“No, really, I was getting bored anyway and wanted to do something,” Hags tells him on the way over from the hotel, a blatant lie.

They’re all relieved to be bored, happy to finally rest up after such a long playoff run and so many injuries. Sid never sleeps as well as he does after playoffs, and Flower is the same way. They often wake up only when Estelle walks into the room and announces, “Papa, Daddy, it’s time to play.”

Sid is tempted to reveal that someone accidentally included him on the mailing list, but he’s almost too touched by it to say anything. Instead, they talk about Hags’s upcoming wedding to Erica, and then Hags turns bashful and admits that they’re going to be moving in with Horny and Malin, which is so genuinely unsurprising that Sid pretends to be shocked just for the hell of it.

They talk about Horny and Hags and their slowly evolving romance, and then they gossip about Tanger and Catherine and the group of younger D-men, speculating as to which one would be most likely, and then talking about who would have to make the first move. For all his bluster, Tanger is incredibly shy when it comes to romance, and it was really Catherine who caught him instead of the other way around.

At the awards, they keep up the mindless chatter, and Hags carries the conversation whenever the expansion draft comes up to draft groups of people at a time instead of just doing it one like a Band-Aid and getting it over with. It’s long and drawn out, and the feeling in Sid’s stomach is too much like how he felt sitting outside the room while Marc-Andre went inside to sign the different contracts and agree to the waiver in the first place.

It’s always been a countdown since then, and today’s the day.

When Mark-Andre finally comes on the stage in a Vegas Golden Knights sweater, the only reason that Sid can’t hear the sound of his own heart breaking is because the applause is almost deafening.

 

_August 2017_

  


The morning is one disaster after another, and while that’s not great on any day, it’s especially poor timing when Sid’s trying not to be late for this flight. It’s the last one that he can take back to Pittsburgh before training camp starts, and while he knows that everyone would cut him some slack if he was late he doesn’t want to start the season out that way, doesn’t want to meet the new guys that way.

The worst part is that it’s Estelle who’s doing most of it, who’s throwing temper tantrum after temper tantrum when they thought she’d finally grown out of it. She throws her cereal everywhere and howls when they try to make her eat, and Scarlett is sobbing openly in her high chair while Flower tries to convince her to eat something as well.

“Please, sweetheart, we talked about this,” Vero tries to explain to her oldest, firmly sitting her back into the chair after she’s tried to make another break for it. “Remember, how we sat down and explained that Daddy is still going to live in Pittsburgh but Papa is going to play for Vegas? We’re going to go see Daddy soon.”

Estelle’s lower lip wobbles for a moment before she bursts into renewed tears, and Sid knows how she feels.

They already had to reprint his boarding pass because Estelle threw the first two copies in the toilet, and Sid doesn’t want to leave her any more than she wants him to, but he knows that he has to. He picks her up and holds her against his chest, and Estelle presses her face against his shoulder and cries. “I’ll see you soon, okay?” he tries to comfort her.

It’s a useless effort, because she’s already too wound up at this point, plus Scarlett’s cries aren’t helping, but this is the cost of having two kids under five. His phone buzzes and he checks it while Estelle’s cries only get louder, biting his lip so that he doesn’t curse with her in his arms.

“What happened?” Flower asks, lifting Scarlett out of her high-chair after giving up on any further attempt at breakfast.

Sid choose this because of the past two failed attempts he had to fly out, but he hadn’t said anything because he knew there’d be an argument. “I got an Uber to pick me up,” he confesses, looking down so he doesn’t have to see their disappointed faces. He can hear Vero’s sigh, though, and then feels her arms as she goes to extract Estelle from him.

With a false cheerful smile, Flower tries to stay positive. “You might actually make your flight if you’re avoiding airport goodbyes.”

Airport goodbyes wouldn’t be so terrible if they weren’t the reason he decided to stay just a little bit longer the past two times. Sid finally lets Estelle go, unwinding her hands from his shirt as he grabs his hat from the counter.

It’s strange, being in a house that Flower and Vero will call home but knowing that he won’t be staying much longer.

“Please don’t go, Daddy,” Estelle whispers through hiccoughs, her tears slowing down at this point. Sid wonders if she knows that she’s breaking his heart and is doing it on purpose or whether it’s just a side effect.

“I have to. I love you, munchkin,” he tells her, leaning over to kiss the top of her head. Vero holds Estelle just far enough away that she can’t reach out and grab onto him again. Flower holds Scarlett out to him, who tries to break free to latch onto Sid almost immediately, and it’s only through Flower’s goalie reflexes that he catches her and holds her steady.

Sid kisses Scarlett and tells her the same as she cries for him, and then he steps forward to wrap his arms around Marc-Andre.

“I’ll see you soon,” Marc-Andre tells him, moving the hand that isn’t holding onto Scarlett up to wipe tears from Sid’s face, although he doesn’t know whether they’re his own or the ones that Estelle shed on him.

It’s time to say goodbye, but Sid has never been good at that, so he coughs a little bit as he pulls away. “I’ll see you soon,” he returns in as steady of a voice as he can manage.

His phone buzzes again as Vero presses into his side, carefully maneuvering so that Estelle can’t reach over and grab him again. “I’ll let you know when we book flights, okay? And I already told Kris and Catherine to make sure you socialize. I love you,” she reminds him, bringing him forward with a hand on his shoulder to kiss him quickly.

It’s not as long as he’d like, but he really doesn’t have much time, so Sid breaks the kiss and says, “I love you, too,” before he pulls Marc-Andre in quickly for one as well. “I love both of you. I’ll call when I land, okay?”

They nod, and Sid starts grabbing his bags by the front door when his phone buzzes again.

He doesn’t turn around on his walk down the yard, but it’s only because he knows he’d run back to them in a second. It’s not the way he wanted to leave, with the girls screaming and crying and Flower and Vero having to intervene to make sure he gets out the door on time. If he had his way, though, he wouldn’t have to leave at all.

**Author's Note:**

> helpless-in-sleep at tumblr, feel free to drop by


End file.
